Engineering: Archimedes of Syracuse

In the 3rd century BCE, the Sicilian polymath Archimedes significantly advanced human understanding of mathematics, geometry and astronomy. By applying his discoveries to practical problems and physical phenomena, he became the founder of statics and hydrostatics, demonstrating how levers work and in turn creating unprecedented war machines such as "Archimedes' claw" and "heat-ray". A lecture by Edith Hall 5 March The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from ...